Game of Thrones Season 7: Dragonstone

The pieces are moving into position. Armies are assembling and alliances are being made. While not as much action happens as previous episodes, the season 7 premiere definitely set in motion the makings of an epic clash of powers.

Warning!! Spoilers ahead!!

Don’t drink the kool-aideThe one woman army and running champion of most kills in a single episode, Arya Stark (Maisie Williams), starts her revenge in a flourish of deception and brutality. Wearing the face of recently deceased Walder Frey(David Bradley), she assembles all the Frey’s for a “victory” toast of the finest wine, with a poisonous twist. As she speaks of their “heroism” and praises the Frey’s of their exploits the room realizes all too late that something wasn’t quite right with their drink. Successfully fulfilling her sworn revenge for her family on the Frey’s she leaves behind an ominous message of “the north remembers,” and moves on to seek her next target.

In a much less murdery scene Arya stumbles upon a band of soldiers, lead by the one and only Ed Sheeran, singing and eating their catch of the day. Here we learn of Arya’s plans and, in a seemingly comedic jest, announces to the soldiers she is going to Kings Landing to “kill the queen.” With her living siblings in the north, it is surprising she isn’t trying to meet up with them and help take down the Lannisters together. Though as we’ve seen already, she is more than capable on her own. Arya will definitely be an exciting character to watch in these final 13 episodes of Game of Thrones.

Children of the North

Winterfell is finally back in the hands of our favorite underdog, Jon Snow (Kit Harington). Newly declared King in The North, Jon sets his eyes beyond the wall with little care of what is going on in the south. Winter has come, and the summer armies pose no threat (as of yet) to the north, but as we all know, the undead army of the Night King cometh and he has undead giants. While it seemed not much happened in the North, we gained a lot of information that will be important in the coming episodes.

Jon declares that all men and women must start to take up arms and learn to defend themselves. What little protest about women fighting, was quickly shut down by the strong Lady Mormont (Bella Ramsey) saying “I may be a girl, but I don’t plan on knitting by the fire, while the men fight for me.”

Jon forgives the Umbers and Karstarks. This is probably the most significant action Jon takes, as he defends his actions from a very openly confrontational Sansa. The sibling spat ends as Jon shuts her down, pardoning both houses because it was the actions of those already dead that betrayed them and not the current lord and lady.

Littlefinger is still creeping on Sansa.

Cersei demands Jon to come to Kings Landing and bend the knee, and despite Sansa’s warning that she will not stop until all her enemies are dead, Jon brushes it off as a nonthreat since they are a “summer army.”

Bran finally makes it to the wall and speaks of the coming undead army to the Nights Watch.

Battle of the best map

The two queens of Westeros are finally on the same land, and both have a strong desire to kill their enemies. We left Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) as she just murdered an overwhelming number of people with an explosion of green fire. Her children are dead, anyone she hated is dead and most of her friends are also dead it appears Cersei is just about out of the game completely. Jamie Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) tries to convince her all is lost, but as we know and love Cersei has yet another crazy plan. Enter Euron Grejoy (Pilou Asbæk). Dressed like he is about to hit the club, he brings his armada to the doorstep of Kingslanding and offers himself as a prize to Cersei all the while mocking Jamie in the process. When refused he responds by saying he will not return until he has a prize worthy of her, and with that, we have Cersei back in the game.

Cut to Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) who has finally landed her army on the land of Westeros at Dragonstone. This pays homage to the first Targaryens as Aegon the Conqueror started his campaign to take over all of Westeros from the very same place. With a small army and three dragons, Aegon became the first king of Westeros. As we know with Daenerys, she has much more than a small army and allies not even Cersei knows of yet in the Tyrell’s and Dorne’s. What we also learn from Sam at his informative (and shitty) experience at the Citadel, Dragonstone houses a mountain of dragon glass. The one material that can actually kill a white walker. Is this foreshadowing an alliance we all have hoped for? Or will this just be another headache for Jon Snow to overcome? As there are only 13 episodes left, I have a feeling we will find out very quickly who will live, who will join forces and if the world is truly going to end.